


Angels In Everything

by LinaBenliven



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Keith/Pidge, F/M, Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Meeting the Parents, Road Trips, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), first time meeting the family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 15:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20099461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinaBenliven/pseuds/LinaBenliven
Summary: Keith has never been more nervous in his life. Sure, Pidge had said the Holts were nice; but she had to say that! They were her family. He just hoped he wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of a family of literal geniuses. It was a long drive to make in order for him to just embarrass himself after all.





	Angels In Everything

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the Kidge Roads Untravelled Zine! I absolutely loved working on this piece and the other people in the zine.   
My beta for this was @wonderlandswurst on tumblr :)

Keith was not entirely sure how to feel. It was winter break, although you couldn’t really tell from the sunny weather around the dorms at the Altean College’s Science and Technology campus. He had driven over from his dorm on the Creative Arts campus to pick up his girlfriend, and as usual, Pidge was running late.

She had promised to be out at around ten so that they could start the lengthy drive up to her parent’s house were Keith had been invited to spend his winter break, yet it was nearly half past ten and Pidge was still nowhere in sight. Keith already had a lot of anxiety at the thought of meeting her family and having them not approve of him, and Pidge taking her sweet time to appear was not helping. If she took much longer he was going to descend into an over-panicked mess.

Keith didn’t know why he was so anxious about meeting her family. He had already met Matt, and he seemed to like him, so his nervousness didn’t make sense to him. Maybe it was because he had never really been good at opening up to people? They usually left him when he told them about his past, or told their children not to hang around with him anymore. Was he really that anxious over the Holts rejecting him like that? 

He knew that worry was stupid. Pidge only ever spoke highly of her parents and had assured him that they were going to be more than happy to meet him, but still, his nerves were taking over. and his brain was sending him into panic mode.

_ When would Pidge get here? _

Keith sighed as the thought crossed his mind yet again and leant back in the driver’s seat again. At least he had come sort of prepared for this. Thanking the stars for the fact he had inherited his foster mum’s habit of being prepared for anything, he rummaged through the small bag he kept in his car to read through one of the comics he had. He hoped reading one of the Red Hood comics would alleviate some of the growing nervousness he could feel bubbling in his stomach.

It was something Keith had always done when he felt scared. After all, many superheroes weren’t afraid of anything, and most of them would definitely not have the crippling anxiety that Keith suffered from. He had started to read the Red Hood comics simply because of Jason’s design and as he had read deep into the lore of Jason’s character and become invested in him, then it had become something that he did in order to make him feel stronger than he was, and now, as a young adult, it was a habit that he couldn’t break.

“Keith!” Keith’s head whips round as he hears Pidge’s voice. She was, according to the clock on the dashboard, an hour late. Although as he caught sight of her in the wing mirror, it was clear that she had only just woken up and just rolled out of bed in order to join him. Her hair was all messed up, and her small frame was hidden by clothes that she had stolen from him. It was a sight that Keith couldn’t deny was adorable, but it was sight that he would have rather seen an hour ago.

“Ah, you’ve arrived,” he says as he puts the comic away, pressing the button to unlock the trunk of his car as he did so. “I was getting worried,” he adds as he watches his girlfriend drag her suitcase to the back of his car. She doesn’t seem to struggle doing so, and seconds after she’s closed the trunk, she is climbing into the passenger’s seat next to him.

“I’m sorry! My alarm didn’t go off, and my phone didn’t charge— the dorm’s fuses blew, and no one noticed,” she explains as she leans over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. She knew Keith was nervous about meeting her parents and, given the bad experiences he had had with parental figures over the years, she didn’t blame him.

“You live in a building with electrical engineers and no one noticed?” he asks, smiling a little from the kiss. He reaches down to open his backpack, grabbing himself and Pidge both one of the cans of energy drink. She looked like she needed it, after all.

“It’s the day after finals. Nobody really wants to care right now. Most of us got in and just went straight to bed,” Pidge explains, taking the can without any compliant. She really did feel like she needed it. Plus, Keith had gotten her favourite flavour.

“That’s understandable. Mine finals are when I come back after Winter break,” Keith replies after he takes a sip of his own drink, putting it in the cup holder on his door so that he could start his car up. “Absolutely dreading it, got that stupidly hard piece to practice for it.”

“That’s why your violin is in the trunk then?” Keith nods at his girlfriend’s question before his anxiety-ridden brain decides to make a more nagging thought known.

“Your parents won’t mind, will they?” he adds as he starts to reverse out of the parking spot, so that he could drive off the campus.

“If you practice? As long as no one is trying to sleep, nope,” she clarifies before leaning back in her seat and taking several sips of her drink. “Now let’s start this road trip!” she shouts before grinning at Keith. He can’t help returning the grin. Her grin was infectious after all.

***

“Pidge, I’m calling it— you don’t know how to read a map,” he says rather exasperated as they end up back on the same roundabout for the fourth time. He doesn’t ask Pidge for the directions this time, instead automatically taking the first exit and looking for somewhere to turn off.

“I do so!” She sounds offended, but Keith can tell that she’s merely joking with him. He knew she could read maps, which is why he had asked her to do so for the journey, but apparently giving directions from a map was a little bit too difficult for the actual genius seated next to him.

“Really, then where are we?” he raises an eyebrow and watches her slowly pout a little. She knew where they were. They were at a roundabout they had seen four times now, but she couldn’t find it on the map.

“I mean, about two hours away from the Altean College,” she replies, a little snarkier than necessary, as she lowers the map onto her lap. She didn’t really want to look at it for any longer; all the lines were starting to blur together. Whether that was from tiredness, or from just staring at it for too long, she didn’t know. “You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere,” Pidge adds as she leans back in her chair.

“You’re the one giving me the directions,” he murmurs as he pulls the car onto the side of the road so that he can look over the map. He’s looking for any discernible markings on the map to help find the road they were currently on. “Right! Found us. We’re here,” he said as he showed her exactly where they were. They were still on the route that they had planned out the other day at least.

“Okay, so the line that we drew says that we just follow the highway up ahead now,” Pidge says after a few seconds of staring at the map once it’s passed back to her. She doesn’t even mind that Keith takes a few seconds to lean over and check that she’s looking at the right line. She had been the reason that they had seen the same roundabout four times after all.

“That’s simple enough.” His voice is clipped, and while it worries Pidge, she knows that Keith normally tells her what he’s thinking when he isn’t pushed for an answer.

“You okay Keith?” she asks after a few minutes, noticing that her boyfriend’s knuckles were slowly turning white as he gripped the steering wheel, his attention focused solely on the road. Normally, this was a big indicator that he was worrying over something, and now that Pidge recognised the signs, she would very much like to help him.

“Just a little nervous,” his voice is too quiet, and Pidge immediately knows that Keith isn’t telling the entire truth. Keith isn’t the quiet nervous type. He gets anxious very easily, and then that nervousness becomes very well known to everyone in the immediate vicinity. Rather than voicing all that to him, however, Pidge just gives him a look that he is all too familiar with. “Meeting your parents is a big deal to me.”

“Keith, they’re going to like you.” She keeps her voice soft, reassuring her boyfriend once again without hesitation. She knew he was nervous, but this was the seventh time that they had had this conversation now.

“How are you so certain they will though?” The minute the question falls from Keith’s lips, he knows it’s a stupid question. Of course Pidge was certain that they would accept him. It was  _ her  _ family. She knew them better than anyone.

“I know them, and all they’ll care about is if you make me happy. That’s all they want for me.” Pidge doesn’t draw attention to the fact that Keith had asked a fairly stupid question. She knew that when his anxiety kicks into high gear, he needs reassurance on everything, and she didn’t mind giving him that. “And you make me happy, so they will definitely like you.”

“And they won’t care that I was in juvie?” And there it was. The true source of Keith’s anxieties. All the Holts were law-abiding citizens and had never even had a parking ticket, let alone time in juvenile detention.

“No.” Pidge’s answer is so certain, and Keith doesn’t understand how she can be so sure. He had missed out on so many opportunities because of his stint in juvie, and he didn’t want to lose Pidge because of that as well. He loved her too much to have that happen.

“But—”

“ _ Keith.  _ They won’t care about juvie. They’ll meet you and see that you’re lovely and considerate. They’ll see just how much you make me happy, and how talented you are on the violin.” She wishes they weren’t discussing this while he was driving. She wanted to hold him close and let him know that he was loved, and that regardless of his past, he would always be loved by her. “Once they know all that, the fact that you were in juvie for some minor delinquent behaviour will become even less of a issue..”

“Thank you.”

“Now that that’s settled, time for some music,” Pidge says with a smile before leaning in and turning on Keith’s radio for the first time during their drive. Familiar rock songs play as Keith’s grip on the steering wheel loosens once again.

***

Four hours after what Pidge had since dubbed the map fiasco at a beaten down service station, they were pulling up to the curb outside the Holt family’s home. They had stopped for a few toilet breaks along the long stretch of highway, but because Keith was that nervous, he could feel himself needing to pee yet again.

Sighing, Keith cut the engine and leant back against his seat. It attracts Pidge’s attention, and he almost tells her that it doesn’t matter when he sees the fire burning in her hazel eyes. He knows that look and knows that it means she wasn’t going to be dismissed easily.

“Look, I get that you’re nervous, and that is perfectly fine. Everyone gets nervous and scared when they meet their partner’s parents, but they’re not going to force you to talk to them,” she explains as she rests her hand on top of his, smiling as he immediately laces their fingers together.

“They won’t?” Keith asks as he makes a silent reminder to punch Lance once he’s back at campus. Why he had trusted Lance to give him advice about meeting the Holts, he would never know. He should have known from what Pidge had told him about Sam and Colleen that they would never force him to talk, that they would just let him go at his own pace.

Plus, giving a confident introduction to strangers was definitely more Lance’s thing than his.

“No. The first time Matt brought a girl home, she was so nervous, she nearly threw up, so mum and dad just waited for her to talk when she was comfortable. They said they don’t mind if you want to just fuss over the dog instead of talking for a while, so don’t worry,” she explains as she gives his hand a quick squeeze, smiling when she sees his face light up at the fact that they have a dog. She had forgotten just how much Keith loved animals.

“You have a dog?”

“She’s called Bae-Bae. She loves getting fussed over and will at some point try to sit on your lap, so don’t stress. Everything will work out.” Pidge leans across the center console and gently kisses him. It’s a brief and sweet kiss, but they had never been ones for long displays of affection.

“I trust you,” Keith murmurs against her lips before giving her another kiss, not wanting to get out of the car straight away.

“Let’s get our stuff inside then. You have a dog to pet.” Pidge grins as Keith pulls his keys out of the ignition, both of them moving to get out the car. He is still anxious about meeting the Holts, but like Pidge said, he could always just pet their dog until he wanted to talk.


End file.
